Always Be My Band Geek

After watching American Pie 4: Band Camp again (and again) recently, I terribly labeled myself as a BAND GEEK. Here’s my horrendous confession to the people who don’t completely know me out there: I was a member of a marching band for three fuckin’ years.

HISTORY
In high school, we were mandated to join at least one club to nurture our extracurricular side- somewhere we can churn out our “talents” and use it for our best. So there were the Choir, Science, Math, English Clubs etc. Note that in grade school, I lived under the Arts Club hut and enjoyed myself drawing, coloring, and drawing and… coloring. And that’s where I exactly foresaw myself in my freshman year. The only thing I could remember was that I was with company with a couple of my friends sitting on a pseudo-park inside the campus to sign us for the Marching Band Club or whatever shit it was called. I swore I looked almost aggravated to teleport somewhere else but there- and join another club. Back then, I was fatally victimized by the Spiral of Silence and just went with the flow. It was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever done in my life.

So at that time, my scrotum-breath friends who were graciously excited to be a member of the band one by one asked me, “What’re you doin’ here?” And seriously I replied that I had no clue. “So what are we going to do in this club?” I rose. They answered that we were to become drummers: Snare Drummers. The thing is I couldn’t retort that I was actually joining the club simply because my friends were joining too. What a nut, Barry! Yeah, I know you could have lectured me about independence and all sorts of “follow-your-heart” quotes. But man, I was a high school… freshman. Besides, some of them had the same mindset as mine. And so, my mom bought me home a snare drum from Manila. Wow, you can’t imagine how excited upset I was.

Ye know, I could finally announce to the whole of humanity “Hey you know what, I’ll be playing a snare drum during parades with my friends and tear myself to a falls of sweat and horrifying dehydration situations. How cool is that, people?!” And to add to the predicted horror, I was still in the goddamn club up to sophomore year. And guess what, our club moderator resigned and a new one emerged… and we loathed her very much.

And it came as a sign that we should quit the thing, and as for me to go back to my normal self. Initially I was the one who really really wanted to leave and my hypocritical sucker friends were like, “Let’s not to go practice, but uhhh… let’s not quit the band, alright?” Yeah, right. They didn’t know what the word “contrast” meant. You see, that’s what has gotten me out of thinking of stayin’ in the club- Saturday practices. I would rather choose to take a slumber and not practice than getting scolded at by an inconsiderate moderator. Cos ye know, I was a pathetic drummer. They all know that.

In junior year, guess what: I was still a band member!!! But this time, the Marching Band was not already a club and only existed as an extra-extracurricular thing. So as if that was enough to forsake the whole abnormality, all my friends and a bunch of girls who also happened to be fellow band geeks (and we all came from the same Science Class) retaliated and went off. Sweit! You couldn’t envisage how our moderator looked like. Lol. But then, that overbearing music freak incidentally rushed to our principal and reported that we had an unforeseen exodus. And oh, to our surprise, our madre principal talked it over us as in a corridor meeting. Wow, my tummy was coiling that moment and it turned out as if that the school sincerely needed us for their parades, intramurals, and all show-offs. So alas, we were dragged in to the band… again, thanks to the “enlightening” words from two women.

Actually, we were only asked to perform for the last time before we get to leave and to consider everything a formal goodbye, so we gave in to their request. That is, for the last time. Cos they were running out of people. Ha, look who’s running after whom now?! Freedom, baby!!!

MORAL
So what did I exactly learn from the almost-three years of being in the marching band. Well, lemme see… aside from learning some basic snare and bass drum beats and few xylophone rhythms (why do they call it lyre? I can’t see strings, can they?), I learned to stand for my decisions firmly. Lol. Seriously, that goaded me to think for myself for than anyone else in making choices in life. (And now, that sounded like selfishness but…) I decided from then on that I should not induce the Spiral of Silence influence since it would not necessarily get me to my interests.

So to my father: There’s no way I’ll be going to Law School!!!

Hmm. Who knew, we may not have bracing band camps here but I’ve had enough experience. And the pseudo-rebellion? It envisioned me as deviant. Figures, I’m in the University of the Philippines. Lol.

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About barrycyrus

Hi, I'm Barry Viloria, 21 and not a blogger. I occasionally bitch about what's hot, what's not, what's life-threatening and what's Blake Lively wearing but I refuse to be called a "blogger." That's it.

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Barry Cyrus blames his `childish trait to his life quote, a lyrics from MGMT's Time to Pretend:

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.